Author: Maria Monica Wihardja, CSIS, Jakarta
The world’s rapidly changing geopolitical, economic and social landscape demands that this year’s G20 Summit be different from previous years.
The last 12 months have witnessed the Japanese triple disaster, the Middle Eastern and North African ‘Arab Spring’, nuclear-powered North Korea’s leadership succession to a 27-year-old, Western condemnation of the Iranian nuclear power program, and the shift of US military strategy to the Asia Pacific. Read more…
Author: Geethanjali Nataraj, NCAER
As developed countries struggle to recover after the global recession and try to confront the looming sovereign debt crisis in Europe, big emerging markets are now driving global growth.
Given the slow down in developed countries, emerging economies are trying to boost domestic demand to sustain growth — and this is particularly the case in China. Read more…
Author: Andrew Elek, ANU
The World Bank recently published a valuable research paper (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 5940 by Justin Yifu Lin and Doerte Doemeland) which presents the evidence needed to justify a globally coordinated initiative in carefully selected infrastructure investment.
A G20 initiative in 2012 could make this happen. Read more…
Author: Suman Bery, IGC
The Indian government presented its National Manufacturing Policy (NMP) to the nation in early November.
Presumably, the announcement was timed to demonstrate that reform is alive and kicking before parliament reconvenes later this month. With the final text now available on the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion website, it is possible to take a considered view of the policy’s goals, the means proposed to achieve them and the probability of success. It is also possible to speculate on the unintended consequences and possible collateral damage.
Read more…
Author: Jacob Kierkegaard, PIIE
The G20 Summit in Cannes probably made its most important contribution to global financial stability and economic growth before it even commenced.
The summit, held 3–4 November, became a deadline for European leaders to deal decisively with the economic and financial crises in the euro zone. Read more…
Author: Andrew Elek, ANU
The 2008 global financial crisis catalysed a long-overdue transformation in the oversight of global affairs, bringing large emerging Asian economies to the G20 table.
A transition in the role of Asian countries at the G20 — from cautious and sometimes defensive to visionary and exemplary — was expected to unfold slowly, possibly taking a decade or more. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
Last week the world was reassured by the thought that Europe had done a deal which avoided default by Greece, the threat to its southern members and to the euro zone itself.
All that unravelled as Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou surprised European leaders and world markets with his referendum plan — just as the G20 meeting got under way in Cannes. Read more…
Author: Sourabh Gupta, Samuels International
On 2 November, on the sidelines of the G20 leaders meeting in Cannes, Zhang Tao, director general of the international department of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), averred that China’s foreign exchange management strategy was based on ‘the principle of safety, liquidity and adding value’.
Given the US$271 billion in reserve losses presumed to have accrued during the 2003-2010 period as a result of the US dollar’s depreciation, this notion of ‘safety’ appears to be a rather elastic one. Read more…
Author: Wook Chae, KIEP
For many reasons, the G20 may be justifiably considered the world’s premier economic forum. These reasons are often associated with problems inherent in the earlier G7 grouping.
The most prominent among those problems was that the G7 consisted only of advanced industrial countries and thus could not legitimately claim the privilege of making important decisions on global economic issues. For the G20 to maintain its authority in future it must continue to incorporate the developing world, and Asia in particular. Read more…
Author: Wang Yong, Peking University
The upcoming G20 Summit in Cannes will undoubtedly attract the world’s attention, as many look to see whether the G20 can play a positive role in the global economic recovery.
And while searching for an effective solution to the crisis, the world will also focus on China, asking whether it might become a responsible ‘leadership state’ in an emerging global governance structure like the G20. The answer, it seems, is that based on its own interests, China is choosing to become a responsible contributor to global governance and wants to become part of the solution to the current global crisis. Read more…
Authors: Peter Drysdale and Shiro Armstrong, East Asia Forum
Suddenly Asia has emerged as a major player in the global economy.
Asia already accounts for 27 per cent of world GDP and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) 2050 Report issued last May suggests that it will account for as much as 51 per cent a generation hence. Read more…
Author: Shekhar Shah, NCAER, Delhi
We live in troubled times. The Dow has taken several multi-hundred point hits as fears rise and fall on Europe’s debt crisis.
The rising debt crisis has left many seriously doubting the United States’ ability to provide global economic leadership. And the news about the global economy’s slowing down is not good. Read more…
Author: Ishrat Husain, Institute of Business Administration, Karachi
The expansion of the G7 to the G20, thereby incorporating Asia, is a welcome step.
Economic power relations have changed considerably in the past decade or so and it was thus only natural that the global governance architecture should begin to reflect this new reality. Read more…
Authors: Chris Manning, ANU, and Raden M Purnagunawan, Padjadjaran University
Although there are some uncertainties, the Indonesian economy is well placed for what will now almost certainly be a sharp downturn in the world economy.
Foreign reserves were at a record high at just under US$120 billion at the end of the second quarter, inflation was down to below 5 per cent, investment up significantly, and growth steady at 6.5 per cent year on year. Certainly, macroeconomic policymakers are not ignoring the potential impact of another global recession; but Indonesia seems relatively unaffected by the immediate- to medium-term impacts of the US’s much slower-than-expected recovery in August and the ongoing debt crisis in Europe. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
Indonesia is undoubtedly one of the most under-estimated countries in Asia.
After three decades of authoritarian rule under President Suharto, it has transformed into a robust democracy. It re-emerged from the Asian financial crisis as undisputed leader within ASEAN. Read more…
